


Words (Are Difficult Things)

by Goodluckdetective (scorpiontales)



Series: Supernatural/Batman fusions. [4]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-11
Updated: 2015-05-11
Packaged: 2018-03-30 03:37:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3921487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpiontales/pseuds/Goodluckdetective
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Batman/Supernatural AU: Bruce is dead. Cassandra and Jason learn how to walk in the void he left.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Words (Are Difficult Things)

**Author's Note:**

> Blueprint for the fic from the episode "My Time of Dying"

     Cassandra was almost positive that she was at least 20 miles over the speed limit.

      She pressed the gas pedal to the floor, speeding across some of the back roads her GPS had picked out for her. It was duck taped to the dash of her truck, and while it wasn’t the newest model, it was nicer than the car itself. Her truck, a rusty old black thing, was on its last legs. The paint was peeled, the fender was bent, and honestly Jason spent more time repairing it then she actually spent driving it. But it worked, and for Cassandra, that was good enough.

       “At the next intersection, turn right,” the GPS said, in a robotic male voice. There was a stop sign up at the next four way, but since no one was waiting, Cassandra decided that the stop was more of a “suggestion” than a command.

       She let off the gas a little, tapping the break enough so she could make the turn. Dust and gravel went flying as her tires screeched against the unpaved road.

        “How long?” The GPS didn’t answer and she groaned. Electronics always needed so many words.  “How long until I get there?”

        The machine took a few seconds to respond. “Two hours and fifteen minutes including traffic.”

        She took off a few of the minutes for speeding and cursed. That wasn’t fast enough. Still too slow. She wouldn’t make it until nightfall at this rate.  She took a deep breath, trying to keep her cool. Crashing the car would only slow her down. She glanced at her mirrors, making sure there was no cops nearby, and pressed a little harder on the gas. Her phone ranged as she speed through another stop sign.

         Barbara had lectured her at least a dozen times about talking on the phone and driving, but Cass had really never given it much note. She reached for her flip phone, fumbled for the speaker button and placed it in one of the free cup holders. It was the one spot in the car that helped boost the volume. She spared a second to turn down the music, rap on full blast, before speaking.

         “Cassandra Cain. Who is this?”

         “Cassie.” She recognized the voice at once. Bruce. He didn’t use that nickname for her often, except when he was feeling particularly fond (usually when she was hurt). Most of the time, it filled her with a sense of security. Now, it just brought upon dread.

         “How is he?”  She thought back to the phone call from two days ago, from Barbara.  The follow up phone call from Tim a few hours later. A demon. The demon.  The one who had killed Dick’s parents, paralyzed Barbara, and killed Jason. The one who wanted to dig his claws deep into Damian and never let go. A few days back, he had possessed Bruce, forced him to attack Jason. Another demon ran them off the road on the way to the hospital an hour later. Tim had called as soon as he woke up with a status report. He has a broken wrist (Cassandra felt a pang of sympathy for her little brother, who wouldn’t be able to type properly for weeks). Bruce had a non-fatal gunshot wound in his thigh. Jason was incubated, bleeding internally, and leaning off the edge of life and death.

           Cassandra hadn’t been around when her little brother died the first time. She wouldn’t let him go alone again. Or at all, if she could help it.

          “He’s fine.” It was short, almost clipped. Cassandra titled her head before remembering Bruce couldn’t see her. Body language was a defunct over the phone. She’d have to use words. Goddamned words.

           “Fine?”

          “He woke up a few hours ago, actually. “ Cassandra’s eyebrows rose. “Tim is with him now. The doctors say he’ll be as good as new after some physical therapy.”

           Cassandra could still hear the beat of her music through the speakers and she turned it off entirely. It was distracting. “Good? I thought-“ She thought a lot. Liver damage. Internal bleeding. Damage to his heart. Those had been the symptoms Tim had listed when she called two hours ago.

           She heard the sound of footsteps in the background. Bruce had to be walking. She frowned; he shouldn’t be moving on that leg. It was a few more seconds before he spoke. “We all thought so, but you know Jason; he’s hard to keep down.” The laugh that echoed over the line was all Brucie. The voice he used to get information or to appease clients. She hated that voice. Her frown deepened.

           “Something’s wrong.” It wasn’t a question. She heard the footsteps pause over the line.

     “Well, Tim isn’t going to be able to shoot for awhile, so I guess-“

     “No, stop.” She gritted her teeth. If she was there, she would know what was wrong. She’d be able to tell by his posture, or by his smile, or by his movements. But here, in her car? All she had was words and they were useless, useless, useless.  “Something is wrong. With you. Magic? The demon?”

     There was a long pause. She heard a door open and close. A click that might have been a lock.  Bruce sighed.

     “You’ve always been so clever, Cassie. You know that right?”

     “Not an answer.” It took a few more seconds before he spoke again.

     “Back at the house, I’ve sent some videos from my smartphone. There’s one for you and each of your brother’s there, along with a few extra for Alfred, Babs, and Stephanie.”

     Cassandra felt her stomach turn. She tried to keep the frantic tone out of her voice. “What videos? What’s wrong? Talk. ” She glanced at the phone, like it could give her the answers. It was painfully still in the cup holder.

     “You’ve been a wonderful daughter, Cassandra.” Bruce’s voice was filled with something terrifying; emotion. “Take care of yourself and your brothers…… I love you.”

     The click of the call disconnected sent her stomach into free fall.

     “Bruce?” There was no response. “Bruce?” She slammed her foot on the break, pulling to the side of the road. Dirt flew onto the country grass.  She grabbed her phone, and looked at the screen. Call disconnected. She redialed. No response. Then again. Still nothing. Then Tim. Then Jason. Nothing but voicemail. She glared at her phone, resisting the urge to break it in half and threw it into the backseat before hitting the gas petal.  

            She would speed the rest of the way to the hospital only to find Bruce in a body bag.

                                                        *************

     She didn’t really remember much about her years on her own.

     From her best guesses she ran away at twelve, after a knife and a vampire case that still left her with nightmares. The streets were a blur of cold nights, little food, and wet pavement. Every night she spent sleeping in some alleyway seemed to fade into one another. They were so similar that she couldn’t tell the difference between a memory when she was 12 and a memory when she was 14. Every day had the same tint of hunger.  That was all that mattered.

     Barbara changed all of that. The redhead found her tracking the same shape shifter case, when she was 15, and from then on out, the streets were a distant memory. Barbara took her to her place, the Wayne’s place, and from there she met what would become her family. There was Dick, the older brother who radiated kindness. There was Tim, the new child, who was just as wary as Cassandra as he walked through the hallways. And last, there was Jason, the lost brother whose spirit was felt only from his photo on the wall (Jason would later grace them with his physical presence, but at the beginning he was a phantom brother, a sibling Cassandra had just missed).

     It would take her months to call the place her home, months to get used to the warm walls and the pillow under her head. It took her just as long to get used to Bruce, a tall hulking man who reminded her far too much of her father despite his body language.

      He won her over in steps. He took her on occasional hunts, patched her up when she was hurt, and comforted her when she was upset. When Barbra was attacked by the demon, she cried into his shoulder. When she wanted him to tell her about a case he made sure to give her all the details.

     But it was the chair that cemented it. The Wayne family table at that time had six matching chairs along with folding metal ones they kept for company. Cassandra remembered avoiding the chair next to Dick on the first day, instead sliding into a metal one on the side.  Later, when she learned the empty wooden chair was Jason’s, she didn’t dare walk near it. She spent weeks with that metal chair, with its hard back and cold seat until one day she walked in and it was gone.

     It was folded back up against the wall and in its place was another wooden chair. It was the same design as the others, this chestnut brown, but it was newer, clearly ordered to match the rest of the set. Cassandra had stared at it for a few minutes, her mind blank until she turned her gaze to Bruce. He didn’t say anything, his mouth full with the night’s meal, but he had looked up at her and gave the slightest tilt of the head.

     That tilt told Cassandra all she needed to know. She didn’t need words to understand this message. To her it was bright as day.  The chair was hers. It would always be hers. And this was her family.

        Words seemed lacking in comparison.

                                                         ************

        None of them could avoid looking at the empty chair the first night after the funeral. The empty seat at the head of the table seemed to suck the energy out off the room, forcing everyone to glance at it far too often. Some of them put up a good effort, Barbara keeping her gaze firmly on her glass, Damian keeping his firmly on his shoes. Dick tried to make small talk, though Cassandra couldn’t help but notice how tightly he was gripping his knife. Tim hadn’t even come down from his room.

     It was Jason who really caught her eye though. He wasn’t even bothering to try to ignore the empty chair, instead staring at it blankly with an expression that  churned Cassandra’s stomach. How often had she seen Bruce staring at Jason’s chair in the exact same way years before?

        She pushed back her seat and stood up. No one said anything, though Barbara and Stephanie both shot her a glance as she left the dining room. The lights in the rest of the house were turned off, the only illumination coming from the windows. The light was fading fast, and she glanced out the window for a short second. She could barely see the sunset.

        She started climbing up the stairs to her room before she even thought about it. After Barbara lost the use of her legs, Bruce entertained the thought of moving to a ranch house so she could get around easier. Barbara had refused, so instead they kept the two story, installing a discrete elevator where one of the closets used to be. A few of her siblings moved their rooms to the ground floor during the reconstruction in order to give Barbara some neighbors, but Cassandra had stayed upstairs. She was too found of sitting on the roof to consider relocating.

     She entered her room soon enough. It didn’t take long for her to climb onto the roof. She sat down, ignoring the roofing dig into her legs. The sunset was almost over now, the sun dipping right past the tree line. Back when she lived on the streets, she used to scale some of the buildings so she could watch the sun set. It used to provide her comfort, to watch the bright colors play across the sky as the world grew dark.

     Now it just hurt.

    “Hey,” She looked over her shoulder. Jason was standing next to her window, looking at her through the pane of glass. “Mind if I join you?”

     Cassandra eyed him for a moment. Jason had healed up nicely. The only evidence of his injuries were faded bruises. After a second, she shrugged. Words seemed too hard at the moment. She turned back to the sunset. She could hear Jason climb out the window and scramble up the roofing himself. He sat down next to her, his hands hitting the shingles with a solid thud. He hissed.

     “Jeeze,” he said, rubbing his palms. “Didn’t expect that to hurt so much.”

     “You went too fast.” They sat there in silence for a few moments, before Jason spoke again.

     “I brought Bruce up here once.” That caught Cassandra’s attention. She turned to her brother. His gaze was solely on the skyline. “Before I died.”

      “You did?”

     “Yeah.” Jason leaned back a little. To the casual observer he would have looked relaxed. Cassandra however, could ignore the way his nails dug into the roofing or how his shoulders shook ever so slightly when he spoke. “He saw me up here smoking and after I refused to stop, he climbed up here to try to make me. Threw my whole packet of cigarettes off the roof.”

     Jason chuckled though it didn’t sound authentic. Cassandra could picture it and closed her eyes. It was a nice image. Jason small and petulant, Bruce younger and annoyed. Dick had told her about those days, the days when Bruce walked lighter and smiled more. She hated that she wasn’t around to see them. “Sounds like him.”

        “Yeah. Thought about bringing a pack up here too, but I figured you’d just throw me off the roof along with the pack.”

     Cassandra, despite herself, smiled. She opened her eyes and looked towards Jason. To her credit, she didn’t startle when she noticed the tears dripping down his face.

      “Jason,” she said softly. He still was watching the sun. It was almost gone now, just a flicker of light in the distant. He took a deep breath.

     “I remember being so pissed at him. Then. Hell, a lot of my memories are being pissed at him. God knows how many times I told him to fuck off this year alone.” His voice was surprisingly steady, even though the tears were increasing. “But back then, I was only pissed for a little bit. Because he gave a shit, you know, he gave enough of a shit to bother with my ass in the first place.” Jason was babbling now, his voice increasing in tempo by the second.  “He gave a shit about me and after all the shit I’ve done, he probably died thinking-“

      Cassandra gripped her brother’s shoulder. He was shaking. Her own eyes seemed to burn. Jason finally looked at her, and Cassandra tightened her gaze on his shoulder and took a deep breath. This required words. Words were hard. But for her family, she’d suffer them all the same.

     “Thinking you loved him. That all of us did. Always.”

      Jason’s face showed no change for a few seconds, and for a second Cassandra thought she said the wrong thing. But soon enough his expression crumbled, turning into heart wrenching sobs. Cassandra let go of his shoulder to wrap him in a hug, pressing his face into her t-shirt. He gripped it tightly, like he was a little kid, and she rubbed his back as he kept crying. She hoped he didn’t notice that she was sobbing too.

    “He did it for me,” Jason’s voice was wrecked. “He’s dead because of me, and Cass, I’m not worth it, I’ve never been-“

     Cassandra just pulled him in closer. Her tears were dripping on the back of Jason’s shirt now, and she made no effort to wipe them away. “No. You are. You always are. We all are.”

    They stayed there like that, mourning a father they lost until the sun had set entirely.

 


End file.
